nPDP Members Meet Osinbajo, Say It’s Too Early To Talk About Quitting
Loading ...Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday met behind closed doors with members of the defunct new Peoples Democratic Party.
The meeting was held inside Osinbajo’s official residence, Akinola Aguda House, in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Members of the nPDP had recently protested what they called their nationalisation in the ruling All Progressives Congress, among other allegations.
Those who attended the fence-mending meeting included the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; Leader of the nPDP, Kawu Baraje; Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso; former Governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako; a former leader of the PDP, Senator Barnabas Gemade; and former governor of Gombe State, Senator Danjuma Goje, among others.
“We are members of the new PDP, a chunk of the new PDP in the APC that presented a letter requesting that our complaints and grievances should be looked into.
“We copied the President and the Vice-President. The party had invited us earlier on and now it’s the turn of the Vice President. Probably the next one will be the President,” Baraja told State House correspondents at the end of the meeting.
When asked if they were satisfied with the intervention of the Vice-President, he said, “So far, so good. It is a good beginning and we are looking forward to some of the promises made.
“There will be other meetings because we will further go into sub -committees that will now identify specific and general problems. It is from there we will proceed to the President. But it is a good beginning.”
When asked specifically if members of the group were considering leaving the APC, he said, “It is too early to talk about that.”
Meanwhile, Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, on Monday, faulted the claim by some members of the nPDP that they were being marginalised.
Ganduje, who spoke at a press conference in Kano to mark the third anniversary of his administration, said the nPDP members had benefitted immensely from the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
The governor, who is also a member of the nPDP caucus that dissolved into the APC, said he was baffled by the claim of marginalisation.
He noted that all of nPDP members were being carried along by the present democratic dispensation.
Ganduje said people like Senate President, Saraki and Speaker of House of Representatives, Dogara, should have no reason to complain.
He said, “Some few members of the nPDP went to the party’s national secretariat and presented a paper that they were marginalised.
“The majority of the defunct nPDP (which I am a member) also went to the national secretariat to mention that those that were there earlier in the name of nPDP were not the true representative of the nPDP. Also, we indicated that we are not part of those who are being marginalised.”
Also, Ganduje insisted that Kano State would mobilise over five million votes for President Buhari in 2019 presidential election, even if the former Governor, Senator Rabi’u Kwankwaso, finally decided to dump APC.
He stated, “Well, we are begging Kwankwaso not to move to another party, but if he decides to go, no problem. There are individual differences.”
He said Kwankwaso’s exit would not affect Buhari’s fortunes of getting five million votes from Kano.
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Source: Punch
